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Russia, 1917

Cotton canvas, painted

Acquisition, 1917

In Judaism thoughts related to the elimination of social injustice have a long tradition.  Making the world more perfect is the duty of all the Jews – which was the basis of the rapid propogation of the new ideas of improving the world in the 19th century. The socialist movement proclaiming equality and justice and a society free from prejudices was a very attractive point of reference for the Jewish workmen and intellectuals in the modernizing world. The leaders of the Jewish community of Pest, despite their initial reservations, came to acknowledge the existence of the new ideals.  It is a reminder that in 1917 they bought the Polish-Lithuanian social democrats’ (Bund) banner waved during the Russian Revolution of 1917. The inscription of the banner painted with a simple, Yiddish text is ‘Down with the tsar's constitution, long live the democratic republic! ‘